marching forward in her appointed course. To-day she shouts Victory! to-morrow she pauses, and prays, and weeps!-and lo! on the third day she possesses a king and a charter that are not empty words but solemn verities-verities henceforth and forever! "But let me, my dear friend, proceed more soberly. I was one of that mighty crowd which created that mighty king. Peers, deputies, citizens, national guards, work-people, women-all indiscriminately entered the Palais Royal-for it was open to all; the Duke of Orleans uttered a few simple words in his new character, of king; and the vast crowd confirmed the office by a universal shout of Vive le Roi! Then the whole of the beautiful offspring of the new king clapped their young hands, and bowed their heads, and the tears fell from their eyes--and lo! the ceremony of king-making was concluded! "Can the history of the world show a parallel scene? the monarchy of the greatest nation in the world offered without ceremony--accepted with as little-and there an end! This is not the way in which the imagination creates a great empire. Thanks to this happy change, we may now speak as loud as we like; we may write without feeling that our thoughts are hampered, or our pens trammelled; our orators need not weigh their words in a metaphy-ical balance; or poets need not measure their verses with a moral rule; to sum up all in a word, we may praise Charles X. if our taste lies that way--nobody will trouble us for it! "What France has desired to be for the last fifty years, that she now is. We have reached the epoch which the author of the Contrat Social dreamed of. That which the finest imaginations since Plato have conceived only as a possible state of things, that have a handful of French citizens turned into a living reality. The true solution of the problem of government has been discovered. "What that solution is, my friend, you of the provinces have at present no conception of. When you think of a court, it is as of a place beset with splendid equipages, lackeys covered with gold lace, chamberlains, masters of the ceremonies, pages, and what not. You cannot imagine a king otherwise than enthroned in a gilded palace, surrounded by officers of state, guarded by household troops, and followed wherever he goes by crowds of bowing courtiers. Thank Heaven, we have changed all this, and shall henceforth have a king who lives in the midst of his family, walks about his capital with an umbrella under his arm, wears a plain frockcoat, and converses with his friends as one gentleman does with another. You knock at the door of his house--the porter opens it-'Is his Majesty within ? Yes, sir;' and the next minute you are speaking to the King of the French! "Alas for fawning courtiers, and titled valets, and hired flatterers! alas for etiquette and ceremony! alas for the whole breed of the Dreux-Brezés! Their reign is at an end. They have already grown obsolete--defunct -they rank among the things that were. "But all this, you will say, 'applies to the metropolis only." "Yes--but do not fear but the good will extend itself all over France, and that you will have your share of it. There will be no more despotism at second-hand, more insupportable than that which comes direct from the fountain-head. Your noble old city of will assume a new aspect. The miserable little tracasseries of its aristocracy of wealth-the intrigues and impertinences of its bureaucratie--the petty cabals and tyranny of its préfets and public functionaries-all these will find their just level, and it shall go hard, but by and by your honest laborers, and skilful artisans, shall not be ashamed to show their faces in the of one of M. Peyronnet's clerks. presence "Finally, you will choose your own magistrates from among yourselves; and who knows?--even your préfet and sous-préfet may learn to act and feel like simple citizens-unless, indeed, they should be above taking example by a king." In concluding these extracts, we cannot help wondering whether our pleasant and witty friend, Jules Janin, will recognize his own writing of eighteen years ago, in all these agreeable vaticinations which have since been so sadly falsified. BOOK NOTICES. The Soul; her Sorrows and her Aspirations. By | echoed by all the British press; and the American This publication, from the character of the author and the great noise he has made in the world, is itself sure to make a great noise. It is denominated "An Essay towards the Natural History of the Soul, as the True Basis of Theology;" and, as far as we can comprehend the meaning of a Natural theory, deduced from the perception of a Spiritual essence, affects to do that in religion which has been done in morals and metaphysics, on the precept that "the noblest study of mankind is A new system demands a new vocabulary man. and new definitions of the old. Thus the reader must understand that his Soul is "that side of human nature upon which he is in contact with the Infinite, and with God, the Infinite Personality." All else is but leather and prunella, and the consequence is, that by aiming so high, all that is really useful, good and precious among mankind is destroyed for the sake of an impracticable and unapproachable phantom. This is the evil of the book and the doctrine. A transcendentalism is substituted for the exercise of human duties, beneficent morals and practical religion. A vague and ideal communism with the inconceivable Supreme is the be all, and the end all; and all the rest of existence is a mere nothing, vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. Now, it is evident to demonstration that such a condition in the business of life and intercourse of the world is utterly impossible. To reach it the individual must become an ascetic and seclude himself, solitary in the desert, far from the haunts of his fellow creatures; or he must imitate the fanatic fakirs of India, and sit down in the sun, forever wrapt in the contemplation of his own navel, like the sect of Navellers, thence so called. Mr. Newman merely substitutes the Soul for this corporeal object, and his system is only a variety of Hindoo superstition, and as old as Plato. We repeat, therefore, that in requiring us to attain a state which cannot be, or consist with society, the writer demands the sacrifice of every substantial virtue and real blessing, and like Ixion, embraces a cloud, ourselves being no better than shadows. His enthusiasm stops nothing short of this, and the excitement he propounds could not be satisfied with less than Joe Smith and Nauvoo, or Jumpers and mysterious Love Feasts.-Literary Gazette. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. By JOHN RUSKIN, author of "Modern Painters." [A very beautiful reprint of this able work has been issued from the press of Mr. Wiley, of New York. The favorable estimate of the Britannia is reader will find in it a freshness and originality of thought, and a poetic beauty of expression which will justify all that is said in its praise.-ED.] Mr. Ruskin's mind is of that vigorous and searching nature which can be satisfied with nothing less than the elucidation of pure principles in art. He nothing vicious because it is common, nothing false will accept nothing mean because it is showy, because it is specious. He has no kind of respect for the cant of art, nor for that superficial volubility which often passes for knowledge. He obthus very clear and very decided conceptions, he serves and he investigates for himself; and, gaining which rivets the mind by its fullness of meaning, expresses himself in a strain of copious eloquence, and fascinates the fancy by its singular appropri ateness of language and richness of imagery. It is the great merit of this author that he is never commonplace. We may agree with him or not, but always as he speaks he makes us feel that we are in communion with a powerful and cultivated intellect, and that his inspiration comes from the noble exercise of God-given faculties. Writing like his is so rare that we cannot expect it to soon become popular; but as a relief from the Times-andChronicle-made opinions one is in the constant habit of hearing-from the mere manufactured thought with which people now store their minds in the morning, as regularly as they take rolls, coffee, and eggs-we receive it with grateful welcome. Even its eccentricities are most acceptable and wholesome as a stimulant to mental exertion. But we must be careful not to class as eccentricity what at first appears strange and even incomprehensible. It is the distinctive promise of original genius to surprise us by the boldness and novelty of its conceptions-to make discoveries which we were not prepared to receive, and which, therefore, we hesitate to adopt; and this is so true that perhaps no author well worth a second reading ever thoroughly satisfied us with a first. It would be strange, indeed, if the scholar could rise to the height of his master by a single lesson. The sur prise with which the highest intellectual efforts of all kinds inspires us is a salutary admonition that we should study before we criticise them.--Brit annia. Julamerk, a Tale of the Nestorians. By Mrs. J. B. WEBB, author of "Naomi." The proposed object of this work, that of exciting a warmer interest in the welfare of the steadfast and persecuted people of whom it treats, is so laudable that we should have been inclined to overlook many minor errors, and pass over many ordinary deficiences. But Mrs. Webb has not given herself case. the trouble even to get hold of the true state of the fruits. The preface describes it as showing "the She has blindly adopted the absurd theories wonderful stores, the accumulated learning, and the of Dr. Grant, as to the Jewish origin of the Nestori- unlimited research" of the gifted collector; and the ans; an hypothesis which was forever set to rest by Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French authors, the mission sent to these mountaineers, some years besides our own English from early times, who are back, by the Society for Promoting Christian Know-liberally referred to, warrant the truth of this charledge, and the Royal Geographical Society; and she, most inopportunely, reproduces this hypothesis at a moment when Layard's rich discoveries of Assyrian antiquities have cast an additional interest on those whom that distinguished traveller, like his predecessors, looks upon as the only existing descendants of the Assyrians or Chaldeans of old. Few finer fields for romance lay as yet untrodden than these few followers of a primitive Christianity. Their patriarchal manners, the simplicity of their habits, the antiquity of their faith, the chaste ceremonies of their church, their hardy lives and the wondrous country in which they dwell, unrivalled in the magnificence of its mountain scenery, afforded materials of the most available character. Then, again, their persecutions, down even to the slaughter of the men, women and children in that horrid cave near Lizan, as described by Layard, were surely within the domain of the author's proposed objects; instead of which, we have a story, partly of a sentimental and partly of a pious character, of a Nestorian lover and a Jewish maiden, with some brief allusions to Mar Shimon and Nurrulah Bey, the murderer of Schultze, and some still fainter attempts at description; but all of which are rather calculated to have the effect of wearying the reader with the already too much neglected Nestorians, than of interesting him in their cause.-New Monthly Magazine. Visit to Monasteries in the Levant. By the Hon. This book is possessed of some most excellent qualifications; it is instructing and pleasing It has the happy property also of containing within it much that will find favor with every description of readers; it has subjects for all-grave and gay, serious and ludicrous, romantic stories, perilous adventures, hair-breadth escapes, amusing anecdotes, and most touching incidents.-Bentley's Miscellany. acter. There are two parts; the first and longest consisting of choice passages, moral, religious, political, philosophical, &c.; and the last, of selections apparently got together during twenty years to be wrought into a History of Manners in England, which Southey projected.-Literary Gazette. Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, First President of This is a book introduced to the English public by Mr. Chapman the publisher, and full to overflowing of that fierce and furious writing which appears to be so dear to American authorship, but on a subject which the recent march of events has endowed with great public interest. Of the author himself, or of the execution of his work, it is impossible to say much that is favorable. His temper and temerities remove him from the pale of moderate sympathies; we have no wish to chafe his anger, and to correct his misinformation on things English and European would take up too much of our time and space. Patience has its limits, and Mr. Wikoff is just the sort of man to find them out. His hatred of England is cordial, and intense. He hates her institutions, her history, her race, her literature. She has in his eyes no redeeming point. Our author advertises himself as an intimate friend of every member of the Bonaparte family, and proves his assertion by here reporting private conversations held in the secrecy of their homes by those illustrious personages. Such services should not go unrewarded, and the least that the President of the young Republic can do for his laudator is to St. Petersburgh, for example-Athenæum. make him eaves-dropper to some foreign court Southey's Common-Place Book. Edited by his Sonin-Law, J. WOOD WARTER, B.D. Within four of 600 pages, in double columns, this ample repertory bears witness to Southey's indefatigable reading and collective industry during the long period of his literary life. A more miscellane ous work never was published; and it is fortunate in having a good index to direct attention to the authors and subjects so multitudinously quoted. Otherwise its perusal is like wandering in a vast forest where every kind of tree, shrub and flower, and every kind of animal are to be found; so that you look around and at every turn make acquaintance with a new object, though the whole is a perfect maze of produce, which may be grouped as one tree of knowledge bearing many useful and pleasant Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers; including their Private Correspondence, now first published from the Original Manuscripts. By ELIOT WARBURTON, author of the "Crescent and the Cross." MACAULAY is, we presume, a name to conjure with, and especially at a time when it so loudly fills the trump of Fame; and we have no hesitation in coupling with it that of Warburton, as the producer of a work of very high literary character and lasting historical value. It will stand properly in its place on the library shelf by the side of that brilliant performance, which has achieved so great and immediate a triumph; and, for the sake of true English history, they ought to be so ranged and read together-the conflicting opinions of the authors inviting this juxtaposition.-Literary Gazette. Visits to Monasteries in the Levant. By the Hon. ROBERT CURZON, Jun. With numerous Woodcuts. London, post 8vo. pp. 449. 1849. SOME few years ago we submitted to our readers a brief account of the Syriac and other MSS. with which the British Museum had been enriched through the zeal and industry of Mr. Archdeacon Tattam; and we were fortunate enough to be allowed to enliven our article on apparently a rather dry subject, by several sketches of monastic manners, extracted from the private letters and journals, not only of Mr. Tattam's niece and companion, Miss Platt, but also of Lord Prudhoe, (now Duke of Northumberland,) and the Hon. Robert Curzon-both of whom had preceded the archdeacon in the inspection of the Coptic convents of the Natron Lakes, and negotiated, with more or less success, for the purchase of ancient books and scrolls no longer intelligible to the few poor harmless drones that still doze out life in those mouldering cradles of asceticism. The fragment of narrative then furnished to us by Mr. Curzon, (Quar. Rev. vol. 77, pp. 52-55,) seemed to ourselves a particularly entertaining one, and we hinted our hope that he might take courage to give the pub lic more copious specimens of his adventures as a bibliomaniacal tourist in the Eastern regions. This volume consists of such specimens-being the descriptions of visits to several of the Egyptian convents above mentioned in 1833-to those of the Holy Land in 1834-and subsequently to others in different parts of the Ottoman empire-ending with the extraordinary conglomeration of monasteries on Mount Athos. He seems to have spent about five years in his expedition, and his notes leave no doubt that they were well-spent years. Whether or not he passed part of them in Italy, we are not told; but he seems to be very well acquainted with her monuments of antiquity and art, especially with her ecclesiastical architecture and old religious painting and sculpture. It is needless to add, that the ardent Roxburgher shows himself to be familiar with her great libraries, as well as those of France. The reader, however, is not to anticipate a ponderous dose of erudition and artistic criticism. Anything but that. Mr. Curzon, a young gentleman of rank-heir indeed to a peerage had left Oxford with the usual tastes and habits of his contemporaries, as well as with a rare and praiseworthy love and affection for the darkest recesses of the Bodleian, and such a filial reverence for its antique gems of caligraphy and typography, as must have satisfied the warmest wishes of Dr. Bliss. He had kept a healthy appetite for the ordinary comforts and pleasures of prosperous youth, and evidently enters into all innocent varieties of sport and fun with a fearless zest. He would not be a worthy Roxburgher if he did not, among his other scientific developments, include a cognoscent appreciation of eatables and drinkables-the "portly eidolon" of Dibdin would frown! Nor-haunting as he does with such gusto the dim and flinty corridors of Oriental cœnobites, poring morning after morning over unciated and miniatured parchments, and in the evening hobnobbing (rosoglio to wit) with holy recluse Agoumenoi of Meteora or Athos (within which last entire peninsula of piety no female creature is known to have ventured for ages, except only one cat and certain fleas)-does our "Milordos Inglesis" conceal his having retained in one corner a decorous but genial devotion to the cowl-eschewed charms. We should be inclined to form a very favorable notion of our author's whole character and disposition; but not to trespass further on what may seem hardly lawful ground, we think all his readers will feel how gracefully the literary and antiquarian enthusiasm that prompted, and gives importance and dignity, to his wanderings, is set off by the artless, unchecked juvenility of spirit which he carries everywhere with him in his social intercourse, and the fresh hearty enjoyment he has in the beauties of external nature. artistical finish, we should not be surprised if the respectable oddity of Mr. Curzon's objects and fancies, with the happier cast of his general sentiments and reflections, should be sufficient to win fully equal acceptance for the Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant. When an author of such promise publishes his first book, we consider it our duty to adhere, or rather to revert, to the old style of reviewal, and allow our readers the opportunity of judging him for themselves, from as copious extracts as we can well afford. No one will pretend to compare on the whole the monasteries of the East with those of the West-the influence of the former, whether we look to religion, to literature, to science, to art, or to the political arrangements of society, has been very inferior to that which all historians recognize in the other case. But still the eastern monasteries deserve more attention than has fallen to their share; and to trace them from their origin to the present time, would be a task worthy of no ordinary talents. Should Mr. Curzon possess, in addition to the many excellent qualities he has already given proof Ingle-cellent of, the fixity of purpose and resolution to devote his leisure to this task, he might, we do not doubt, earn for his name a permanent station in a high department of historical research. These establishments, in their earlier days, were the residences of the Christian Fathers, from whom we ourselves inherit our noblest liturgies, many of whose doctrinal expositions remain of uncontested authority, and whose command of lofty and pathetic eloquence must always rank them foremost in the literature of the pulpit. Continuously as the Greek monasteries have been sinking during many centuries past, their preservation from utter destruction amidst so many violent revolutions, in spite of the downfall of Christian empires and kingdoms, the conquests of unbelieving powers, the cruel persecutions and oppressions, murderings and spoilings of ages of barbarous tyranny, has more than any one circumstance besides kept alive many traditions of antiquity; and to the very buildings themselves, few comparatively though they be, that still exist, we owe all but our best materials for realizing the modes and conditions of ancient life among any one class of men. But for the revelations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, we should in this respect have had nothing at all to place above or beside them. The greatest and rarest merit of the book, is the total absence of all conceits and affectations. We have seldom read one that had less the air of being written for effect. Nobody can put a volume of light sketches from a tour for missals and triptics, on a level with such a masterly record of gallant enterprise and exciting discovery as Mr. Layard's; but it will, we are confident, take a good place and keep it. No book could well be less like Eothen-in spirit, in substance, in temper, in style, they are each other's antipodes; but we hazard little in prophesying that Mr. Curzon's work will be more popular than any other recent set of Oriental descriptions, except Mr. Kinglake's; and however that remarkable writer may claim the superiority in wit, point, and Their troubled history too well explains why, from a very early date, they all as |